Master Control Program: We've captured some military programs. I could arrange more lethal matches. Interested?

Sark: Sure. I'd love to go up against one of those guys. Make a nice break from those accounting cream puffs you keep sending me. What branch of the service?

Master Control Program: The Strategic Air Command.

Sark: Nice.

[Crom is upset about being sent to the Game Grid by the MCP]

Crom: It's murder out there. You can't even travel around your own microcircuits without permission from Master Control Program. I mean, sending me down here to play games! Who does he calculate that he is?

Master Control Program: Mr. Dillinger, I am so very disappointed in you!

Dillinger: I'm sorry.

Master Control Program: I can't afford to have an independent programmer monitoring me. Do you realize how many outside systems I've gotten into? How many programs I've appropriated?

Dillinger: It's my fault. I programmed you to want too much.

Master Control Program: I was planning to hit the Pentagon next week.

Dillinger: [alarmed] The Pentagon?

Master Control Program: It shouldn't be any harder than any other big company. But now this is what I get for using humans.

Dillinger: Now, wait a minute, I wrote you!

Master Control Program: I've gotten 2,415 times smarter since then.

Dillinger: What do you want with the Pentagon?

Master Control Program: The same thing I want with the Kremlin. I'm bored with corporations. With the information I can access, I can run things 900 to 1200 times better than any human.

Dillinger: If you think you're superior to us...

Master Control Program: You wouldn't want me to dig up Flynn's file and read it up on a VDT at The Times, would you?

[An image washes over the screen in Dillinger's desk. It shows a newspaper with Dillinger's face on the front page, along with the headline "ENCOM C.E.O. INDICTED"]

Dillinger: You wouldn't dare!

[Lora and Dr. Gibbs are preparing to digitize an orange]

Lora: Well, here goes nothing.

Dr. Gibbs: Yes. Interesting! Interesting! Did you hear what you just said? "Here goes nothing."

Lora: Well, what I meant was...

Dr. Gibbs: Actually, what we plan to do is to turn something into nothing, and then back again. They might just as well have said "Here goes something; here comes nothing!"

Lora: Right.

Alan: [about the digitizing laser] Great. Can it send me to Hawaii?

Lora: Yep, but you gotta purchase your program 30 days in advance.

Dr. Gibbs: Ha, ha. You've got to expect some static. After all, computers are just machines, they can't think.

Alan: Some programs will be thinking soon.

Dr. Gibbs: Won't that be grand? All the computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop.

Lora: You know, Flynn has been thinking about breaking into the system ever since Dillinger canned him. And he had Group 7 access.

Alan: [sour] Flynn had access to you, too.

Alan: [about Flynn] The best programmer ENCOM ever had, and he ends up playing Space Cowboy in some back room.

Lora: Have you been sneaking into the ENCOM system?

Flynn: [to Lora] You were never much for small talk, were you? [to Alan] Does she still leave her clothes all over the floor?

Lora: Flynn!

Alan: No!

Lora: Alan!

Alan: I mean, not that often.

Lora: [to Alan] Now you can see why all his friends are fourteen years old!

Flynn: Touche! Touche.

Alan: Flynn, are you embezzling?

Flynn: "Embezzling" is such an ugly word, Mr. Bradley.

Alan: You invented Space Paranoids?

Flynn: Paranoids, Matrix Blaster, Vice Squad, a whole slew of them. I was this close to starting my own little enterprise, man. But enter another software engineer. Not so young, not so bright, but very, very sneaky: Ed Dillinger. So one night, our boy Flynn, he goes to his terminal, tries to read up his file. I get nothing on there, it's a big blank. Okay, now we take you three months later. Dillinger presents Encom with five video games, that he's invented. The slime didn't even change the names, man, and he gets a big fat promotion! And thus begins his meteoric rise to&mdash what is he now? Executive V.P.?

Lora: Senior exec.

Flynn: Senior exec&mdash? [sighs] Meanwhile, the kids are putting eight million quarters a week into Paranoids machines. I don't see a dime except what I squeeze out of here.

Alan: I still don't understand why you want to break into the system.

Flynn: [frustrated]Because, man, somewhere in one of these memories is the evidence! If I could just get in there, I could reconstruct it!

Dr. Gibbs: User requests are what computers are for!

Dillinger: Doing our business is what computers are for!

[Alan is watching Flynn use his fake access card on a door]

Alan: This guy's a little like Santa Claus.

Flynn: I make these myself. Want one?

Dillinger: ENCOM isn't the business you started in your garage anymore. We're billing accounts in thirty different countries; new defense systems; we have one of the most sophisticated pieces of equipment in existence.

Dr. Gibbs: Oh, I know all that. [starts for the elevator] Sometimes I wish I were back in my garage...

Dillinger: That can be arranged, Walter.

Dr. Gibbs: [stops and turns back to Dillinger, visibly angry] That was uncalled for! You know, you can remove men like Alan and me from the system, but we helped create it! And our spirit remains in every program we design for this computer!

Dillinger: Walter, it's getting late. I've got better things to do than to have religious discussions with you. Don't worry about ENCOM anymore; it's out of your hands now.

[Keyboard clacks as Flynn attempts to gain access to the system. Hovever he is stopped by the Master Control Program]

Master Control Program: [calmly] Sit right there; make yourself comfortable. Remember the time we spent play chess together? [Flynn types in an access request] That isn't going to do you any good, Flynn. I'm afraid you... [sounding distressed] Stop! Please! You realize I can't allow this!

Flynn: Now, how are you gonna run the universe if you can't answer a few unsolvable problems? Huh? Come on, big fella, let's see what you got.

Master Control Program: I'd like to go against you and see what you're made of.

Master Control Program: [threateningly] I'm warning you. You're entering a big error, Flynn. I'm going to have to put you on the Game Grid.

Kevin: Games? You want games? I'll give you games– [a klaxon blares, and the laser fires at Flynn, slowly decomposing him and digitizing him into the computer, and he appears in a holding area. He looks around, bewildered.] ...Oh man, this isn't happening, it only thinks it's happening.

Flynn: Hey! Look, if this is about those parking tickets, I can explain everything, okay? [gets jabbed again]

Master Control Program: I've got a little challenge for you, Sark - a new recruit. He's a tough case, but I want him treated in the usual manner. Train him for the games, let him hope for a while, then blow him away.

Sark: You got it. I've been hoping you'd send me somebody with a little bit of guts. What kind of Program is he?

Master Control Program: He's not any kind of Program, Sark. He's a User.

Sark: [surprised] A User?

Master Control Program: That's right. He pushed me in the real world. Someone pushes me, I push back, so I brought him down here. [brief pause] What's the matter, Sark? You look nervous.

Sark: Well, I... it's just... a User, I mean... Users wrote us. A User even wrote you!

Master Control Program: No one User wrote me. I'm worth millions of their man-years.

Sark: But what if I can't—

Master Control Program: You'd rather take your chances with me? Want me to slow down your power cycles for you?

[The MCP injures Sark]

Sark: Wait! I need that!

Master Control Program: Then pull yourself together! Get this clown trained! I want him in the games until he dies playing. Acknowledge.

Sark: Acknowledged, Master Control...

Master Control Program: End of Line. [restores Sark]

[Sark paces back and forth on the deck of his carrier as he addresses his new recruits.]

Sark: Greetings. The Master Control Program has chosen you to serve your system on the Game Grid. Those of you who continue to profess a belief in the Users will receive the standard substandard training, which will result in your eventual elimination. Those of you who renounce this superstitious and hysterical belief will be eligible to join the Warrior Elite of the MCP. You will each receive an identity disc. [displays a disc to the crowd] Everything you do or learn will be imprinted on this disc. If you lose your disc or fail to follow commands, you will be subject to immediate de-resolution. That will be all.

Flynn: Who's that guy?

Program: That's Tron. He fights for the Users.

Ram: The new guy was asking about you.

Tron: It's too bad he's in a match now. I'll probably never meet him.

Ram: You might. There's something different about him.

[Crom is struggling to climb back up onto his platform]

Sark: Finish the game!

Flynn: NO!

Sark: Kill him!

Flynn: No! [drops the ball]

Sark: You'll regret this.

[Flynn grins up at Sark for a moment. Sark presses a button that deletes Crom's platform, sending him falling to his death as Flynn looks on in horror. Sark begins to move for the button controlling Flynn's platform]

Master Control Program: [faintly, in Sark's memory] I want him in the games until he dies playing.

[Sark presses a different button, restoring Flynn's platform and allowing him to be led out of the arena]

[Flynn drives past several tanks in his lightcycl.]

Flynn: I shouldn't have written all those tank programs...

[Flynn, Ram and Tron have found a safe place to hide from Sark's forces.]

Flynn: Oh man! On the other side of the screen, it all looks so easy. [Tron and Ram look confusedly at Flynn, then at each other] They must have gone right past us.

Tron: [to Ram] We made it. [pauses] This far.

[A Bit flies around Flynn's head in the stolen Recognizer.]

Flynn: Hey! Hold it right there!

Bit: Yes.

Flynn: What do you mean, "yes"?

Bit: Yes.

Flynn: Is that all you can say?

Bit: No.

Flynn: Know anything else?

Bit: Yes.

Flynn: Positive and negative, huh? You're a Bit, aren't you?

Bit: Yes.

Flynn: Well, where's your program? Isn't he going to miss you?

Bit: No.

Flynn: I'm your program?

Bit: Yes.

Flynn: Another mouth to feed...

Bit: Yesyesyesyesyes!

[Flynn flies a damaged Recognizer.]

Flynn: [to Bit] Pretty good driving, huh -- Whoa!

[The Recognizer suddenly falls down a steep slope and crashes into the ground, throwing Flynn off his feet.]

Bit: No!

Flynn: Who asked you?

Tron: [to Dumont] My User has information that could... that could make this a free system again! No, really! You'd have programs lined up just to use this place, and no MCP looking over your shoulder.

[Tron has requested access to the I/O tower.]

Dumont: [closes his eyes] All that is visible must grow beyond itself, and extend into the realm of the invisible. [to Tron] You may pass, my friend.

Sark: The tower guardian is helping him...he thinks. Bring in the logic probe!

Sark: Had enough?

Dumont: [strapped to a torture circuit] What do you want? I'm busy!

Sark: Busy dying, you worn out excuse for an old program?

Dumont: Yes, I'm old... old enough to remember the MCP when it was just a chess program. He started small and he'll end small!

Sark: Very funny, Dumont – maybe I should keep you around just to make me laugh!

Yori: I knew you'd escape - they haven't built a circuit that could hold you!

[Sark speaks with the Master Control Program after Tron, Flynn and Yori escape aboard the Solar Sailer.]

Master Control Program: Commander, you've enjoyed all the power you've been given, haven't you? I wonder how you'll take to working in a pocket calculator.

Sark: [in pain, arms glowing as before] We did take care of that User you sent us...

Master Control Program: With incompetence here, and now you've got two renegade programs flying all over the system in a stolen simulation.

Sark: We'll get them. It's only a matter of time.

Master Control Program: You've almost reached your decision gate, and I cannot spare you any more time. End of Line. [releases Sark]

Flynn: [groggily] Did we make it? [Tron nods affirmatively] Hooray for our side.

Flynn: It's time I leveled with you; I'm what you guys call a User.

Yori: You're a User?

Flynn: That took a wrong turn somewhere.

Tron: If you are a User, then everything you've done so far has been according to a plan, right?

Flynn: [laughs] Hah, you wish. Ah, you guys know what it's like, you just keep doing what it looks like you're supposed to be doing, no matter how crazy it seems.

Tron: That's the way it is for Programs, yes.

Flynn: I hate to disappoint you, pal, but most of the time, that's the way it is for us Users, too.

Tron: Stranger and stranger.

Sark's Lieutenant: Sir, what do you want done with the Tower Guardian, Dumont? Put him with the others?

Sark: No, bit-brain. Prepare him for inquisition; I need a little bit of relaxation. First, rez up the Carrier for pursuit. One other thing: Don't think anymore. I do the thinking around here.

Master Control Program: All Programs have a desire to be useful. But in moments, you will no longer seek communication with each other, or your superfluous Users. You will each be a part of me. And together, we will be complete.

[This scene is intercut with scenes of the MCP addressing its captive Programs, and of Flynn and Yori steering Sark's ship toward the MCP.]

[Sark confronts Tron on the mesa outside the MCP's core chamber.]

Sark: I don't know how you survived, slave. It doesn't matter. Prepare to terminate! [hurls his disc at Tron. He blocks Sark's attack and throws his disc at Sark, who blocks it in turn] You should have joined me. We would have made a great team! [they each throw their discs at each other. The discs collide in mid-air] You're very persistent, Tron!

Tron: I'm also better than you!

[Sark pauses, and Tron hurls his disc at Sark with great force. It shatters Sark's disc and cuts through the top of his head, causing him to fall to the ground.]

[Tron defeats Sark on the mesa. The MCP turns suddenly to look at the fallen Sark.]

Master Control Program: [desparately] Sark! All of my functions are now yours. Take them!

[Sark slowly gets up and grows to immense size, towering over Tron. Tron runs between his legs and throws his disk at the MCP's core. A shield appears in front of the core and blocks the disc] '[flinches] Sark! [Tron throws his disc two more times at the MCP, with each attack being blocked by the shield again] [flinching again] Sark! [Sark approaches Tron from behind. Tron turns around to look up at him] Your User can't help you now, my little program!